Chapter 569: The Gloves Come Off II
The gloves were coming off. No more restraining myself for the good of other [Healers]. No more avoiding stepping on toes. No more giving opportunities for other people to step in and level.
No more barely-tolerating people I couldn’t see and hear being sick, hoping that someone else would manage to get to them. No more hoping against hope that the sick and poor would find medical attention, either by finding me when I worked in the slums, or if a kind passing Moonlight Medic gave them a hand.
I had barely, just barely tolerated the state of affairs, going so far as to perform the occasional city-curing ‘miracle’ in Sanguino, and now was the time to put things right.
It was like a switch flipped in my mind as my understanding of the world shifted ever so slightly. Not only was it right, but I was now obligated to always put my best efforts forward to the city I lived in or was nearby. I’d need to do some soul searching on what, exactly, that meant - but I knew it was exceptionally unlikely that I’d ever retract my aura again.
People near me - for a large, generous definition of near - would live, assuming they weren’t trying to kill me and mine. That simple. I mentally whispered an apology to all those healers who were going to be denied experience and opportunities, but the gloves were off.
I didn’t think I was ever going to put them back on.
My skills practically sang in harmony as I linked them all together, unleashing my aura and my range. Thick, heavy imaginary tomes in [Astral Archives] provided all the medical knowledge I needed, from anatomy to physiology, injuries and how to cure them, a thousand and one disease and mechanisms of action. I paid special attention to interesting Miasma-improved bacteria and viruses, and tweaked my mental model to make sure I got them, even if they looked ‘beneficial’ to a human. There was a modest number of gut bacteria that were going to be caught by my new filters and images, but that was the price I needed to pay to eradicate the disease.
I imagined whoever was the creator on the other end of the disease knew that, and quietly chuckled at their genius. I doubted it was an accident, and whoever it was had experience in making virulent life-ending plagues. Fortunately, it was only ‘some’ bacteria, not ‘all’, and the worst cases might experience some diarrhea or constipation, along with some mild stomach aches and discomforts.
Compared to the dozens or even thousands of vampires that could die otherwise, it was a no-brainer. The minor harm to one group was far outweighed by the major harm that would occur to the other group.